Over the last year, our team has been working on a major collection management project – processing our ‘holding’ collection.   

Te Toi Uku’s current collection is made up of objects from a variety of places. However, a large portion of the collection was purchased in 2009 from Richard Quinn – an avid collector who is responsible for preserving a great deal of Crown Lynn’s object and archival history. The holding collection is made up of over five-hundred objects which were part of Richard Quinn’s collection, but were deemed not worth adding to Te Toi Uku’s formal collection. This decision was due perhaps to the condition of the object, or that an example of the same object was already part of the Te Toi Uku collection.    

Although not accessioned (a museum word for ‘added to the collection’), these objects were packed away with the intention that they would be processed properly at a later date. We are now at that ‘later date’! Thanks to a Lottery Environment and Heritage grant, we were able to begin the long process of opening each of the eighty holding collection boxes – removing every object and deciding what to do with it. Some objects have been put aside for various public programmes, others will be part of educational material, and objects which we can find no use for will likely be disposed of.   

As a result of this processing, we are left with only twenty-eight boxes which will remain in storage. This reduction is huge, as it frees up all-important space in what is already a very small museum.   

A huge thank you to New Zealand Lottery Grants board for enabling us to take on this project! We are looking forward to the wonderful things we will be able to do with these holding collection objects now we know exactly what we’ve got.